


Family Bonds

by Gameasy



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Azula (Avatar) Needs a Hug, Azula (Avatar) Redemption, Fire Nation (Avatar), Fire Nation Royal Family, Gen, Lu Ten (Avatar) Lives, Ozai (Avatar) Being a Terrible Parent, Zuko (Avatar) Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:34:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26586703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gameasy/pseuds/Gameasy
Summary: This is the story of a Lu Ten who is not killed by those wishing vengeance on the Fire Nation, and of his younger cousins who do not have to mourn him.Here, it is the Dragon of the West who takes the fall, and Lu Ten who survives, and who returns to the Fire Nation palace to be with the rest of his family.
Relationships: Azula & Lu Ten, Azula & Lu Ten & Zuko, Azula & Zuko (Avatar), Lu Ten & Zuko
Comments: 14
Kudos: 172





	1. The Reunion

In another world, the siege of the great city of Ba Sing Se falls apart because the man leading the charge falls apart from within.

In this one, he is instead the one who falls over, dead. 

His son, barely come of age and already one of the best officers his soldiers have ever seen, holds himself together far better than he has any right to, and takes immediate command. Not well enough to win the battle, not without the great Dragon of the West, but even the retreat he managed to salvage was regarded throughout the army as a minor miracle.

After, in a ceremony with the Firelord, he will get a commendation for exceptional military service. A private commendation, because the Fire Nation can't be seen publicly acknowledging that withdrawal is ever the best course of action, but still far more than the execution or exile that he expected to receive. 

His cousins wait for news for days, and finally hear that he will make it back alive, and both are happy. One of the them knows his joy and screams his knowing to the world. The other wants to do the same but would probably deny it, even if pressed, because she’s so so young and already far better at lying than telling the truth. But her cousin is one of the only ones who remembers her as a little child that he tried to protect, rather than one he feared, and would see right through her regardless.

And this, in the end, is what really separates this world from any other. Not any grand action or consequence of Iroh passing and Lu Ten surviving, but that family does as family should. Not everyone in the family by any means, but this time, it might just be enough to make a difference. 

Here, Zuko leaps into Lu Ten’s arms as soon as he’s in sight. Here, Azula waits until they are ensconced in a private room before joining the hug. Here, they find some measure of solace in each other’s arms, and some measure of comfort in the distraction the others provide. 

But not everything can change just because the world shifts. No, the adults of the palace are far too stubborn to listen to mere fate. 

Indeed, none of those present yet realize that anything has changed at all. Azula and Zuko continue to fight each other, desperate to prove themselves to their parents. Ozai continues to sparingly reward Azula, training her to perform at his whim. Ursa continues to love Zuko with her whole heart, sheltering him as much as she can from Ozai’s wrath. 

But Azula and Zuko have someone they both look up to now. And in that sphere of mutual respect, they find themselves paying closer attention to the other than they have in years, and they start to see pieces of themselves in each other. 

Zuko had never before seen that Azula’s perfection comes not solely from innate ability, but an utter refusal to show anyone else anything less. Zuko, in so seeing, learns that she is more than just the abilities that Ozai craves, and starts to see the flaws in his own drive to impress Ozai. Azula learns to recognize Zuko’s sheer determination to prove himself, even when so many around him doubt him. Azula, in so doing, sees that Zuko is more than just the weakness that Ozai sees, and starts to learn that there are other ways forward than Ozai's.

Beyond even that, they start to understand the path that the other is on. Azula, for all her skill in manipulating others, has never truly learned why people are willing to open themselves up to the world. Zuko, who is often far too straightforward for his own good, has never come close to understanding why anyone would pretend. Both of these start to change, and something new begins to grow. 

Ozai sees none of this, for neither Azula, nor Lu Ten, nor Zuko wish him to. Within the year, he still makes the same appeal to Firelord Azulon, and he is still handed back the same orders. 

Azula still hears of this, hidden behind the curtain, and still runs to Zuko. She still talks of how father intends to kill him and of him leaving for the Earth Kingdom, and Ursa still overhears and intervenes, and is banished for the trouble of it. 

(Ursa has had trouble reading her daughter for years and this night is no exception. Indeed, very few could tell the difference between Azula taunting her brother and Azula pleading with her brother to leave before he is killed.)

(Luckily for the both of them, in this world, Zuko is one of those few. _Azula always lies_ does not become his personal mantra here.)


	2. The Forging

Lu Ten does not fight Ozai for the throne. He thinks of the rumors surrounding Ozai and wonders if he should, but then he looks at little Zuko and littler Azula, who are only just starting to see the person their father truly is, and does not have the strength to disappoint them. He wonders if this makes him as terrible a person as Ozai is.

(It is only later that it occurs to him that he probably wouldn’t even be able to beat Ozai in an Agni Kai, and he wonders what it says that his own life was the last thing he considered.)

Years pass, and the three of them continue to become. They begin training together in secret, working on passing on any knowledge or skills that one has and the others do not yet possess. 

The lessons Azula teaches are always sharp, criticism delivered without mercy, for kindness is a weapon she does not yet know. But she does teach them as best as she can, for she has been given firebending lessons that Ozai deemed only she, as the royal prodigy, was worthy of, and the perfectionism that has been drilled into her very being means that she can see every little out of place detail at all times. She has never had a chance to put her talents to any other use than impressing her father though, and Zuko’s joy at a firebending breakthrough is a very different reaction than she usually gets. Lu Ten would have been happy enough with her lessons even if that was all that was accomplished. Cracking open the secrets of lightning generation that had previously proven elusive to him was far more than he had hoped for. 

Zuko’s lessons are slow and halting comparatively, as he is not used to ordering people around, and will sometimes trip over himself while he tries to figure out how to convey what he wants to teach. They are also devoid of military or political knowledge, as Ozai deliberately gave his son lessons in the most useless things he could get away with. But only someone like Ozai would think so little of an heir to the throne learning subjects like medicine or economics. Besides, even the painting lessons are beneficial for this little group, to give Lu Ten a moments rest from the constant war in his mind, and to continue Azula’s journey on imperfection and humility. 

Lu Ten learned much from his time at war, including both how to be strict when it is truly needed, and the importance of being gentle and caring whenever possible. Beyond that, he knows his cousins far better than any of the royal tutors do, and cares more deeply about them than they do about themselves, and his teaching style reflects all of this. His lessons are primarily of war and politics of the Fire Nation court, for there are some things that one will always learn best by doing. Because of this, much of what he teaches is relevant only to one who will become Fire Lord, and both Azula and Zuko sometimes finds themselves why they are being included in such lessons. For Azula, this comes in the moments when she is trying to accept that Zuko is the heir, since she would not want him to get killed or exiled in order for that to change. For Zuko, in the moments that he allows himself to acknowledge just how much Ozai favors Azula, and what that probably means for his likelihood of inheriting the dragon throne. But both Azula and Zuko desperately want the lessons to continue, and fear the answers they’d receive, so neither ever asks. 

Lu Ten is no Dragon, but his work at Ba Sing Se gave him some sway. And when Zuko wants to accompany him to a war meeting, to further learn the ropes of being a crown prince, he does not refuse. Instead, he invites Azula to join them, for all three know that her sharp edges will help protect them from the wolves inside. 

Zuko hears the plan to sacrifice the 41st, and is horrified. His entire being fills with the desire to rage and shout, to grab the general who suggested the plan by the throat and make him see how despicable such a plan would be. But he remembers Azula’s lessons on control, and manages to temporarily tame the storm inside him. He will wait until he is in a position of more power, and then he will never again have to listen to such fools. 

Azula hears the plan to sacrifice the 41st, and thinks the general is a fool for an entirely different reason. His plan would work well for this battle, but eventually the truth would spread and the very soldiers they rely on would no longer trust their command. She knows how to read a room though, and can tell that no one is going to speak up, either because they fear possible retribution for doing so, or because they are not wise enough to care. Azula doesn’t particularly care which, because even beyond her principled desire to stop the general’s foolishness, she can tell that Zuko is nearly vibrating with rage at the idea, and that cannot be allowed to continue. Here, Azula is the one who speaks up in the war room, but she carefully plays the role of the subservient prodigy while doing so. Here, she has a reason to hide behind, one that the Firelord is willing to listen to.

The 41st will live to see many more days yet, and no one inside the palace is scarred or banished. The rest of the world turns ever onward.


	3. The New Beginning

Years more pass calmly for those inside the palace. 

Elsewhere, the war continues to devastate all the peoples of the world, the Fire Nation included, but the palace is too insulated for its occupants to truly realize the severity of the destruction.

Lu Ten hears the rumor first, as he is not the Crown Prince anymore, and has more opportunity to search out such things. He initially dismisses it, as one is wont to do with such outlandish tales, but its sheer persistence makes him wonder.

Azula hears next, from one of the little birds that she’s convinced to feed her information. But her serving girl has no details to give, no real knowledge to sink her teeth into, and all the other leads she tries to seek out are dead ends. 

Zuko doesn’t hear, at least not in the initial round of rumors from Kyoshi or Omashu. He only hears a couple of days later, when the reports of an airbender assisted prison break start coming in.

All of them hear of the necklace left behind, but only Lu Ten knows the significance, that it means someone from one of the Water Tribes was there too. He wonders if this mean that the Avatar has already found their waterbending master.

None of them truly believe that the Avatar has returned until the break in at the Fire Sage Temple. Four of the five Fire Sages stationed there remained loyal to the Firelord, and all of them lived, and passed on the tale of the sheer destruction that the Avatar was capable of. Their testimony is more than enough to persuade the entirety of the Fire Nation.

Ozai orders Lu Ten to capture the Avatar. He used to believe that Lu Ten was plotting against him, but Lu Ten has been cooperative and compliant since Ba Sing Se, and Ozai is convinced that he must have lost his will for the throne when Iroh died. Ozai does not see who really holds the loyalty of Lu Ten, because Ozai does not truly understand what loyalty is. 

Azula and Zuko hate the idea of sending Lu Ten away, and loudly make their opinion known. To Lu Ten, at least. They know Ozai will not back down without a solid reason and they do not have one to give, not without implying disloyalty or dishonor and endangering him even more, but that doesn’t mean they’re happy about it. This is as close to a real fight as the three of them have had in years, and none of them like the feeling. 

The next day, Zuko goes to his father and kneels before him, begging Ozai to grant him permission to accompany Lu Ten on his journey, to give him the chance to prove his worth as a member of the royal family. As the three of them had hoped, Ozai sees it as an opportunity to get the lesser heir out of the way, and grants his request. 

And so Azula is left behind with Ozai, alone, as she is in almost every world. But here she knows the love of her cousin and brother. Here she knows that she does not know her father's love, and that her father views her as a tool, a weapon for him to wield. Here she knows what love truly is.

And so she fights. 

She cannot fight openly, of course, for her only protection has always been her perfection, and a tool that stops functioning will be broken and discarded. But Azula started training herself in deception and manipulation at a far younger age than most people even know those concepts exist, so she's just as at home in the court of the nobility as she is when she's practicing firebending in the palace training courts. 

Ozai might not be able to tell the inner machinations of his family quite as well as he thinks he can, but he's definitely right about one thing: Azula is a prodigy of strategy. She will always find a way, even in circumstances where almost anyone else would say none exist.

The wiser generals start their own work behind the scenes. They have been watching Azula and Zuko closely for years, ever since Azula demonstrated her own cunning and forethought when she showed up one of their own in her very first war meeting, and showed Zuko’s heart and caring when she spoke out when no one else dared. They fear Ozai, but they know that he has no real head for strategy, nor any real respect for war. 

And beyond the palace, the rumors have started to spread. The 41st have heard of the fate they were saved from, and so have their friends and families. The wind is shifting in the Fire Nation population, and it is not in Ozai’s favor.

Azula and Zuko have many more allies than anyone realizes.


End file.
